Welby’s bid to pay families’ £400m of Wonga loans

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will bring investors and charities together at Lambeth Palace next week in a bid to support more than 200,000 borrowers who face hardship if forced to pay back their debts.

It comes on the advice of MP Frank Field, who wrote to the Archbishop urging the Church to buy the collapsed lender’s loan book, using some of its £7billion assets.

The move could be an attempt to save face after questionable CofE investments were exposed by the Daily Mail.

On Thursday, Archbishop Welby faced charges of hypocrisy after the Church was found to have heavily invested in Amazon despite the prelate accusing the firm of ‘ leeching off the taxpayer’.

The Church was yesterday forced to defend its controversial investment, thought to total more than £10million, by claiming it gave it a voice to lobby for change as a shareholder.

Previously it had emerged that the CofE had embarrassing links to Wonga.

Archbishop Welby complained in 2013 of the company’s high interest rates and

From yesterday’s Mail called for it to be competed ‘out of existence’ by supporting credit unions.

But a day later it emerged that the Church of England had invested in one of the firm’s main financial backers, giving it an indirect investment in Wonga itself. Following the collapse of the lender – which at one point charged customers interest rates as high as 5,853 per cent until being capped at 1,500 per cent – administrators have said they would consider all rescue proposals.

Last week Mr Field, the chairman of the Commons work and pensions committee, wrote in a letter to the Archbishop: ‘The Wonga loan book will be sold and, if past record is any guide for the future, they will be sold at knockdown For today’s solution, see page 65. rates. Within these loan books will be some I assume devoted exclusively to their exploitation of the poor.

‘Is there a possibility please of you asking the Church Commissioners quickly to assemble a consortium of good people with money who will attempt to buy those poor people’s loan books at a knockdown price?’

It is thought the commissioners may try to set up a rescue consortium, rather than directly investing their assets to help victims of Wonga.